From the article by Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 68: We must know that all the inclinations, tendencies, and properties instilled in a person, with which to serve one’s friends, all these tendencies and natural properties are required for the work of God.

To begin with, they were created and imprinted in man only because of their final role, which is the ultimate purpose of man, as it is written, “he that is banished, be not an outcast from him.” One needs them all so as to complement oneself in the ways of reception of abundance, and to complement the will of God.

We need all the details of the relationships that unfold between friends. We should not retouch, cancel, hide, or suppress anything or prevent it from developing. All aspirations have to awaken, open up, and develop in everyone. Precisely these bad and good inclinations (no matter which one) with respect to the relationship of a person and his friend we afterward will have to turn into the relationship between a person and the Creator.

This is why the one who does not develop his relationship with his friend is not ready to become even one step closer to the Creator.[95392]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Question: There is a rule: “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and in it, love for oneself is not cancelled by love for one’s neighbor. Is it possible to love one’s neighbor without loving oneself?

Answer: Love for one’s neighbor is impossible without self-love! Therefore, egoism is not destroyed. I always have to check relative to myself: I love myself, and the neighbor—just a bit more.

Why more? Now you love yourself more than you love others, so, based on the rule “love as yourself,” you have to love others a little more than yourself. Moreover, you need to constantly watch, compare, and take an example from how you love yourself. Thus you begin to know yourself.[95347]From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

Question: The group’s responsibility is to constantly take care of the greatness of the Creator and the importance of the goal. From practice, we see that when we are experiencing a general ascent, for example, the preparation for a convention, then this work is done enthusiastically; everyone is ready, everyone is agreement, and everything is fine. But as soon as egoism grows, then everyone is weighed down with excuses, important things, just not to engage in it. How can we overcome this?

Answer: Each lesson should be the next step. If I had not felt this, I would not have the strength to come to the lesson every day.

Every day I have to see renewed people, that is, the same faces but different in content; they could be in descent, in ascent, but different.

These are not just faces, but a huge mass of people. After all, I do not remember anyone’s face, I do not remember names because I feel only their qualitative changes. I feel those who are on-screen and off screen, those who are present, together, with us at the lesson: There are hundreds of thousands of people.

Recently, we conducted a survey in Israel of who watches our TV channel. We got incredible figures. It turned out that hundreds of thousands of people watch us. And I feel all this mass. But it must change, and this brings me to a state of readiness.[95344]From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

Question: We have to turn to the Creator in order to ascend and to attain connection. Does this happen through the group, through the collective desire, or through a dialogue with the Creator? What should I spend my time and my exertion on?

Answer: You are a particle in a giant system, and through it you receive everything from the force that is revealed in all the system. You don’t discover anything inside you, no matter what touches you. Nothing from you is passed on to the Creator, but only to the extent that you are incorporated in the whole system.

According to your level of development, like a child, you are given a small corner—a bed, or a whole room, or you may even run around the house or even go out and play in the sand box, meaning that the range is gradually expanding.

But you are actually “protected” by the Creator, and you turn to Him through the same world that you feel, just like a kid who feels his world.

You should understand that everything that happens to you is a result of the whole world and its condition. You are a man of your generation.[95263]From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

We need to understand that the eternal particle of the soul exists in its potential in every one of us if we unite with the others. It is one for all of us and is initially created as such. If, however, we don’t feel that we exist in one collective whole, this means that none of us has this soul and all we have is just our animalistic nature.

The soul is also called “Adam”—from the Hebrew word “adame”—similar to the Creator.

The desire to receive is totally opposite to the desire to bestow; it wishes to receive, not give, but at the same time, if it realizes itself against its own nature, it becomes similar to the Creator. Its similarity lies in the core of its action, not according to its nature, but according to how it transformed itself. This is its inverse, corrected state and is called the soul or Adam.

It is also called “Shechina.” This is a special word, from the Hebrew word “Shochen,” meaning a place of dwelling, settlement, residence. It is the place where the Light descends to and fills it up.

Thus, there are various names for the soul depending on which of its aspects are being discussed. But generally, no matter what is being discussed, it is the only subject matter: this collective soul, the only one that exists, besides the upper force. And we are its corrupted part and don’t understand where we are. We are in this soul but in a broken state, and that’s why we can’t say that we have it in us. Respectively, all our work is aimed at one goal: only to correct and find ourselves in this reformed state.

There are many people in the world whose parts in the collective soul have been corrected. These parts are called “particular souls”, and they are assisting us.

There is circulation of souls: Every instant a person passes through certain states even if he hasn’t yet entered the spiritual world, meaning that he hasn’t found his part in the common soul and hasn’t become Adam in general, hasn’t linked with this whole system; that is, he is not yet its active part.

This is an enormous egoistic system containing all the egoism of the universe and working on bestowal, in sync with the upper force, with the Creator. They connect, receive from each other and bestow to each other, and between them, a complete contact occurs, a so-called adhesion. One way or the other, we are in this common soul in everything and always, although we are moving toward our goal either willingly or unwillingly; that’s the difference.

People who live in our world without any understanding of it, move around unaware of and yet according to the program of creation. There is nothing that could break the confines of the law of the collective creation. This program is concealed from man, but he doesn’t understand where he is going and what he is doing at any particular moment in time. Suddenly something pushes him, and he acts, instinctively or seemingly conscious. None of us can see what strings we are being pulled by.

Why did one suddenly wish to act this way, think this way, or got into this trouble—we don’t understand. Only having risen over our state of existence and observing ourselves from aside, like a mother watches her child, will we be able to work on ourselves, on our egoism. Then, we will feel when we are being pulled by the strings, and maybe we will be able to pull them ourselves.

This is our development; I come to a state where before I am pulled, I will pull myself. Thereby, I engage the Light to affect me instead of the Light coming to play with me. This is a crucial turning point in a person’s work on his transformation, when he begins controlling his own development.

This, essentially, is what we are striving for: to be handed the governing force and to govern with it on our own. When the Surrounding Light is in my hands, I can engage it and make it affect me as necessary. In that case, I govern my soul; I am equal with it. This is the aim of our development in the group. Because essentially, the group represents the soul for me in a “material” form. If I connect to the friends, I connect with the collective desire, which, actually, is the soul.[95247]From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

Question: Why does Baal HaSulam say that a person is thrown from the friends to the teacher and back again like a “slingshot” and by that the right vessel for receiving the Light is built in him?

Answer: A person receives wholeness from the teacher and through the group he discovers his evil. Despite his reluctance, he is incorporated in the group and makes great efforts to become part of the environment and to connect with the friends.

Thanks to that, in response to all his efforts, he discovers aversion, hate, and anger. This is how his egoistic desire is revealed in him; it isn’t his friends that he sees, but himself in the friends, as if in a mirror.

When all these negative feelings are revealed, the question is to what extent he acknowledges that this evil is revealed in him and not in the friends. At the same time he comes to his teacher, to the lesson, and receives treatment from the teacher, a correction.

If he has the right connection with the Rav and with the study, he has to come out white. As all the evil that he felt towards the friends takes on an opposite form, and he understands that it is in his favor. Instead of cursing he now gives thanks for it. Instead of feeling the evil in the friends, he feels good; instead of feeling good and proud about himself, he now feels bad. This means that everything turns upside down.

The opposite definitions that he now understands and feels in his attributes compared to the friends is called “a slingshot,” reverse, a trigger.[95282]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Question: How does the system of: person – group – teacher work? What is the function of each component in this formula?

Answer: The role of the teacher is to correct the student, and the role of the environment is to evoke the egoistic desire in him, not for the corporeal filling but rather for the spiritual filling.

There are two systems: the system of the uncorrected desires, the left line and the system of corrections, the right line. (Although it is clear that everything is run from above and designated for correction).

The teacher is on a higher level since he passes the Light downward to the students and for him the good and the evil come from one source. With regard to the student, which means on the lower level, the good and the evil are perceived as coming from two different sources, a good one and an evil one.

The teacher’s goal is to pass the Light to the student by the help of the study and the Creator, so that it will correct him and the good and evil will become one whole for him. This means that on his current level, the student will reach a feeling that “There is none else besides Him, the good and the benevolent.” Thus he ends the current level and goes on to the next level, and so he rises time after time.

It turns out that all the components have to be divided into two parts: the right line and the left line. And who are you? You have to try and reach the middle line, the upper level, in which there is no good or evil and where there aren’t many factors, but rather, everything converges into one: the group, the study, and the teacher—everything belongs to the Creator, and there is none else besides Him.[95279]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Question: How is it possible after the convention to continue feeling that I have no individual abilities, but only the abilities of the group?

Answer: Before you didn’t have any individual abilities either, and you were part of the group, but now it is clearer, and accordingly more is demanded of you. The more that is revealed to you, the more you are demanded to participate, mentally, emotionally, and actively in overcoming.

It is very clear that by very small efforts, we have already discovered that within our collective vessel an illumination is emerging. The problem is that we attained this by physical connection between us and not by spiritual connection. In the meantime it is a very big deficiency.

In addition, it happens thanks to the fact that I am incorporated in the group using the force to connect with them. This means that there is still al lot of work that has to be done on the part of our group in order to reach a true inner connection among the friends. Then the Light that is equal to this connection will arrive.

In the meantime it is lacking within the group and among the groups. We have to connect more strongly with one another. I think that this convention has shown everyone that we are closer to one another than we thought. All the groups felt close and people understood that we have no choice but either to advance toward an even greater connection or leave.

We will soon see how this happens: There will be people who will come gladly and there will be those who will leave cursing. This is how the clarification is done.

We now have to fulfill what we felt in the convention. In order to fulfill that, a person needs constant self-control with regard to his attitude towards the world that is managed by the Creator. Am I aware of the fact that I am in a world that is managed by the Creator? Do I perceive the world as a place where by focusing on the fact that everything is done by the Creator I will eventually find the Creator in this world?

World (Olam – also means concealment in Hebrew) is concealment on the one hand and the revelation of the Creator on the other hand. The world is concealed because I don’t reveal the Creator. But because I intend to reveal Him, to identify with Him, and to receive everything that happens as the absolute good and benevolent and there is none else besides Him, then by that I accept this concealment, and then the concealment of the world becomes a revelation.

This is all I have to say about this. Don’t expect anything beyond this and don’t think that as we advance I will have new words. But the same words will be clearer to you. If someone else begins to read, it would mean nothing to him, just like people who read the Torah and understand it literally. These are ordinary words, since in spirituality there are no words.
Besides, it is forbidden to reveal more than is allowed. We have to understand that the teacher is an educator who has to do his job.[95274]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, “Questions and Answers Regarding Novosibirsk Convention”

Rabash, Shlavei Sulam (The Rungs of the Ladder), (1984/85), Article 13: “Mighty Rock Of My Salvation”: …Wherever he walks, he is eagerly searching for a place where perhaps someone will be able to give him the power to bestow.

When a person begins his work, discerning the Creator’s action over him, he continuously remains in the state of search and helplessness: “How do I find the Creator? How do I draw Him close to me? How do I move and excite my affection, how do I use my mind to comprehend Him? Where do I reveal His action? What veil conceals it? How do I ‘turn’ myself in order to highlight His connection—even if it is negative, only to manifest it?”

A person starts changing his facets and properties desiring to unveil the Creator thereby. Such is the nature of our work. It isn’t simple; it requires enormous energy; it burns tons of “calories” and demands great effort in a tireless “chase after the Shechina.” Gradually, a person gains experience on this path and learns to overrule himself. This is the key.

And the Creator, based on one’s previous years and one’s life in the group, prepares all sorts of surprises for him. One’s personal errors start surfacing, or somebody makes him angry, or he feels insulted and feels the urge to put the offenders in their place in the heat of the moment, but suddenly stops and thinks: “Aren’t I supposed to work on myself by the principle ‘There is none else besides Him’?” But how? I am on the warpath now, and I am expected to remember Him?

Question: Rabash says that one has to find a group where everyone “craves the power of bestowal.” What does it mean?

Answer: In the group, we don’t receive normal incentives: money or respect. After all, the friends are getting pushed by the upper force, and gradually they assume a spiritual path. Then this force starts receding so that they can draw energy from spirituality on their own, without blows from behind.

Question: How do I draw strength from the spiritual so I advance not for the sake of honor and other egoistic rewards?

Answer: You can draw strength only from unity; otherwise, it won’t be spiritual growth. I strive to link in, to sink into the group, so I can be impressed by the friends. I don’t collect their strength for myself, but I do get impressed and respond to their giving, their love, and their spirit. Seeing them for the first time, I feel sorry I looked; after all, now I will suffer because I don’t participate in what they do. I wish they wouldn’t awaken brotherly love—I would be more at ease, would feel better, be more content. But then I tell myself: “Wait a minute, but this is exactly where you can gain strength, impressions; it can shake you up and ignite! So instead, let them be exalted in my eyes and inspire me to follow them.”

In the end, the group, the teacher, the Creator, and the Kabbalists’ books—these are the only positive factors I have to advance. And all the friends must link together as one; none of them is supposed to be lesser than the others. Only as equals can we move toward the goal.[95184]From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, Writings of Rabash